News:

"There is a terrible desperation to the increasingly pathetic rationalizations from the climate denial camp. This comes as no surprise if you take the long view; every single undone paradigm in history has died kicking and screaming, and our current petroleum paradigm 🐉🦕🦖 is no different. The trick here is trying to figure out how we all make it to the new ⚡ paradigm without dying ☠️ right along with the old one, kicking, screaming or otherwise." - William Rivers Pitt

American History for Truthdiggers: Tragic Dawn of Overseas Imperialism 🦍

November 10, 2018 TD ORIGINALS

By Maj. Danny Sjursen

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Maj. Danny Sjursen is a U.S. Army officer and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan...

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Editor’s note: The past is prologue. The stories we tell about ourselves and our forebears inform the sort of country we think we are and help determine public policy. As our current president promises to “make America great again,” this moment is an appropriate time to reconsider our past, look back at various eras of United States history and re-evaluate America’s origins. When, exactly, were we “great”?

SNIPPET:

According to the old historical narrative, the U.S. has always been a democratic republic and only briefly dabbled (from 1898 to 1904) with outright imperialism. And, indeed, even in that era—in which the U.S. seized Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii and the Philippines—the U.S. saw itself as “liberating” the locals from Spanish despotism. This wasn’t real imperialism but rather, to use a term from the day, “benevolent assimilation. ” Oh, what a gloriously American euphemism!

The truth, of course, is far more discomfiting. The U.S. was an empire before it had even gained its own independence. From the moment that Englishmen landed at Jamestown and Plymouth Rock, theirs was an imperial experiment. Native tribes were conquered and displaced westward, year in and year out, until there were no sovereign Indians left to fight. In 1848, the U.S. Army conquered northern Mexico and rechristened it the American Southwest. Yes, the U.S. was always an empire, what Thomas Jefferson self-consciously called an “Empire of Liberty.” Only the American Empire looked different from the British and Western European variety. Until 1898, the U.S. lacked the overseas possessions and expansive naval power that have come to define our contemporary image of empire. That was the British, French and Spanish model. No, the U.S. was a great land empire most similar (ironically) to that of Russia, but an empire nonetheless.Still, there is something profound about 1898 and the years that followed. For it was in this era that the American people—and their leaders—became sick with the disease of overseas imperialism. With no Indians left to fight and no Mexican lands worth conquering, Americans looked abroad for new monsters to destroy and new lands to occupy. Britain and France were far too powerful and were not to be trifled with; but Spain, the deteriorating Spanish Empire in the Caribbean and Pacific, proved a tempting target. And so it was, through a brief—“splendid,” as it was described—little war with Spain, that the United States would annex foreign territories and join the European race for colonies.

1898 is central to our understanding of the United States’ 🦍 contemporary role 🏴‍☠️💵🎩 in the world, for it was at that moment that the peculiar exceptional millenarianism of American idealism merged with the Western mission of “civilization.”

The result was a more overt, distant and expansive version of American Empire. And, though the U.S. no longer officially “annexes” foreign territories, its neo-imperial foreign policy is alive and well, with U.S. military forces ensconced in some 800 bases in more than 80 countries—numbers that by far exceed those of other nations. Furthermore, the remnants of America’s first overseas conquests are with us today, as the people of Puerto Rico, Guam and Samoa are still only partial Americans—citizens, yes, but citizens without congressional representation or a vote in presidential elections. How ironic, indeed, that a nation founded in opposition to “taxation without representation” should, for more than 100 years now, hold so many of its people in a situation remarkably similar to that of the American colonists before the Revolutionary War.

In retrospect, then, 1898 represents both continuity with America’s imperial past and a bridge to its contemporary neo-imperial future. This era is key because it stands as a moment of no return: a pivot point at which the United States became a global empire.

One can hardly understand contemporary interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan without a clear account of 1898 and what followed. The Spanish-American War and the occupation of the Philippines are two of America’s fundamental sins, and their consequences resonate in our ever uncertain present.

"...social Darwinism, the notion that “survival of the fittest” applied to man as well as beast, that certain races were scientifically superior to others. It was all snake oil, of course, but it was a predominant ideology..."

Social Darwinsim is, EVEN MORE SO TODAY, the predominant CANCEROUS ideology destroying our biosphere. The Social Darwinsit cheerleaders 👹 for Profit Over People and Planet, BECAUSE THESE Empathy deficit disordered, might is right worshipping barbarians have NEVER been able to add and subtract in biosphere math, ARE the embodiment of the 'Perpetual Growth AND Greed is good' CANCER ☠️ destroying America. 😱

DEFINITION OF THE CANCER ☠️ destroying America AND most of the BIOSPHERE (that Human Civilization relies on to survive) ► Fervent Social Darwinsts ☠️ = CAPITALISTS ☠️ who believe that we must expand continually or "atrophy" from "non-manly = leftist, socialist, peaceful, environmentalist against polluting businesses, etc. you get the idea" behavior. 🤬

Religion is just the clever disingenuous 😇 😉 fig leaf these Consciense Free BASTARDS 😈 use. The CORE RELIGION of Social Darwinists is that MIGHT, no matter how irresponsible, no matter how unprincipled, no matter how unethical, no matter how destructive to the biosphere in general and fellow humans in particular, IS RIGHT. 🤬

In 1508 Emperor Maximilian I attempted to force his bankers to invest in bonds to support another of his wars. Fugger was furious at this, and wrote a letter back to the Emperor. Steinmetz explains:

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Fugger started with what he said was obvious. Companies like his benefitted every level of society, producing jobs and wealth for all. Business could only work its magic if the government left it alone. If politicians threw up roadblocks and killed the profit motive, business had no chance. Merchants and bankers were good citizens, he argued. They treated each other and their customers fairly. Sure, self-interest propelled them. But they knew better than to cheat customers. Reputation was everything and the need for credibility checked the urge to lie, gouge and steal. Hinting at the allure of tax havens (the Swiss border was only sixty miles away), he declared that other countries show businessmen more respect. He blasted those who condemned commerce and enterprise. They failed to understand that “it is for the common good that honourable, brave and honest companies are in the realm. For it is not disreputable but rather it is wonderful jewel that such companies are in the kingdom.”

It is no surprise that when the German Peasants’ War broke out in 1524, that wealthy men like Jakob Fugger were accused by the people of corruption and stealing from the poor. At one point during that year Jakob had to flee his home in Augsburg because of the threats from protestors. Fugger did all that he could to support the nobles trying to put down the revolt, which would only end after 100,000 people were dead.

Read a LOT more and feast your eyes on some videos about the richest man that ever lived and his Castle with fountains, ovens and fireplaces in EVERY ROOM at a time whern most people NEVER got enough to eat in their ENTIRE LIVES. The influence 😈👹💵🎩🍌🏴‍☠️🚩 of this Oligarch and his CAPITALIST CHEERLEADING descendents to fund war and social repression continues to this day.

The potantate's back in the day used to use court jesters & actors to form a barrier between "them" & the peasants, for this very reason. revolt or rage against the machine.

Fast fwd to today & the same practice is used. The Master's use politician's, actors & sports figures to keep the useless eaters busy while "they" do the fleecing of the sheep.

I LOVE websites like medievalists. Great stuff.

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Jakob Fugger the Elder was the next person to handle the family business, but when he died in 1469, control went to his wife, Barbara Basinger.

One wonders if Ms. Basinger might fairly have been called, "Mother Fugger."

I hadn't read about the Mother Fugger before. It was long after his time, of course, that Capitalism began to demonize Socialism with, oh so clever baloney like, "The trouble with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money" (credited to Margaret Thatcher 😈, but considering she was every bit as dumb as she was greedy, Reagan was probably the one who passed that on to her from a note Saint Milton Chicago School Fascist Friedman 👹 gave to Reagan 🐒).

Then there's that one Reagan liked about, "I'm here from the Government. I'm here to help.", delivered in his most professional actor sarcasm.

As far back as 1508, it was crystal clear to the casual observer that, THE TROUBLE WITH CAPITALISM, IS THAT YOU EVENTUALLY RUN OUT OF OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY. At that point you have to kill off a bunch of angry peasants who are starving or start a war (which you make peasants fight, of course) to find new sources of asset stripping plunder to put a bandaid on the cratering economy you destroyed with CAPITALISM.

Eventually you run out of people to kill and sources of EVERYTHING out there on the PLANET, that is plunderable, to plunder.

It's hard to fit all that in a sound bite but ya get the idea.

As to Reagan's favorte bit of clever BULLSHIT, it applies now quite well to the FIRE sector.

I just read this yesterday. It really gets to the heart of why people fall for all this Capitalist BULLSHIT. For the average person, it is hard to differentiate between socially beneficial freedoms and socially detrimental ones. The Capitalist CROOKS make sure to muddy the difference as much as possible with happy talk propaganda. This snippet from a recent Chris Hedges article pretty much exposes the CAPITALIST siren song CON.

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The economist Karl Polanyi understood that there are two kinds of freedoms. There are the bad freedoms to exploit those around us and extract huge profits without regard to the common good, including what is done to the ecosystem and democratic institutions.

These bad freedoms see corporations monopolize technologies and scientific advances to make huge profits, even when, as with the pharmaceutical industry, a monopoly means lives of those who cannot pay exorbitant prices are put in jeopardy.

We’re supposed to speak kindly of the dead. And we’re supposed to bury our dead presidents with the type of fanfare and reverence that the colonial forebearers of this nation’s white settlers reserved for royalty. Today, as we prepare to bury the nation’s 41st president, George H.W. Bush, the American press corps is carrying on this tradition, eulogizing him primarily by celebrating his polite demeanor and his successful self-representation of civility. Yes, the 41st president presented as a nicer person than the 45th, or his son, the 43rd. But for the people whose countries or lives were destroyed by his violent actions, he’ll always be a monster. Sanitizing his story amounts to historical revisionism.

Below are just eight of the many reasons why, beneath the civility, George H.W. Bush was a detestable president.

THAT is the reason the USA was "neutral" in Spain. THAT is the reason for the Munich debacle.

Last, but certainly not least, is the FACT that the American Industrialists that made HUGE FORTUNES from U.S. involvement in WWI were SALIVATING at the prospect of MORE WAR in Europe.

Let's be clear here, shall we? The American public did not have ANY SAY in whether the USA went into WWI or WWII, PERIOD. It was the CAPITALIST (i.e. FASCIST) Profit Over People And Planet OLIGARCHS that made those decisions BEFORE the media propagandists were tasked to sell that CRAP (see: Bernays) to the American Public.

SHAME on the author for leaving all the above out of the historical reality of that time. 👎 😠

Unless you view that particular time period of history in the proper context, you cannot begin to understand how political 'business as usual' 😈💵🎩🍌🏴‍☠️🚩 in the USA has studiously ignored the will of we-the-people EVER SINCE!

In the introduction to his magnificent critique of American historical education, James Loewen starts provocatively: “High school students hate history. When they list their favorite subjects, history always comes in last. They consider it ‘the most irrelevant’ of twenty-one school subjects commonly taught in high school. Bo-o-o-oring is the adjective most often applied.”

Since the initial publication of “Lies My Teacher Told Me” in 1995, I have regularly read this passage to my UCLA students in my course on the history of social protest. The overwhelming majority of my students have enthusiastically concurred with Loewen.

Many decades ago, I too sat in my high school history class, listening to Mr. Jones drearily reciting an unremittant litany of historical facts, mostly without context, intended to be memorized and regurgitated for future examinations. I also drifted off into my own world, thinking about things that teenage boys think about.

This book is subtitled “Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong.” In this third edition published last year, the text retains sociologist Loewen’s sharp critique of the 12 American history textbooks he surveyed in his first edition as well as the six books he examined for the second edition. He found, as he describes, “an embarrassing blend of bland optimism, blind nationalism, and plain misinformation, weighing in at an average of 888 pages and almost five pounds.” He showed persuasively how American history textbooks—these ponderous tomes—lied to millions of American students by sugarcoating historical events and persons, encouraging mindless patriotism and faith in unending American progress, and negated any serious critical thinking.

Most strikingly in his new preface, Loewen notes that more recent U.S. history texts merely promote the illusion of critical thinking. But they rarely encourage students to assemble real data to back up their opinions about historical controversies. Indeed, they actually promote the false notion that all historical opinions are somehow equal, and fully deserve respect.

As Loewen perceptively observes, the absence of useful historical textbooks augments the challenges for young people in the Trump 🦀 era. He pointedly identifies President Donald Trump and his pernicious White House minions as purveyors of lies and falsehoods: the age of “alternative facts.”

The preface shows the photographs of the inaugural crowds of President Barack Obama in 2009 and President Trump in 2017. Former press secretary Sean Spicer claimed that 2017 saw the largest audience to witness an inauguration. Kellyanne Conway defended this absurd assertion. The photographic evidence clearly revealed the falsehood of the claims. The insidious combination of inadequate and deceptive historical education and a national administration that denigrates the free press represents a grave threat to democracy.

Some of the chief things that American history textbooks get wrong are their lies by omission. As Loewen repeatedly shows throughout the book, the focus is on those men (rarely women) in American history who have represented the dominant power centers of social, economic, and political life. Rarely do these textbooks mention the people who have resisted power and spent their lives fighting for structural change. And even when a few are mentioned, it is often in highly sanitized form.

For several years in my social protest class, I have done a brief exercise at the outset by identifying some major American agitators and asking students if they have ever heard of them. I often start with Ida B. Wells because about half or more of the 150-plus students have heard of her. Then, I move to the other figures on my list. Emma Goldman. Joe Hill. Eugene Debs. A. Philip Randolph. Mother Jones. Saul Alinsky. Paul Robeson. Harry Hay. Fred Korematsu. JoAnne Robinson. E.D. Nixon. Dorothy Day. Fannie Lou Hamer. Stokely Carmichael. Reies Tijerina. Dolores Huerta. Several others.

The results are strikingly similar each academic year. Three or four students, or fewer, can identify these figures. The rest have no clue. I note that they are rarely mentioned in historical textbooks and, for the large part, many history teachers are likewise unfamiliar with them and their radical social and political work.

I then provide my class with a dramatic example from the first chapter of Loewen’s book. He writes about the case of Helen Keller, whom every student knows. They all know about the blind and deaf girl who overcame her handicaps. They know the story of her teacher, Anne Sullivan, who helped her to read, write and speak. Almost no one, however, knows what Loewen writes in his book: Helen Keller was a radical socialist, a supporter of the IWW, of the ACLU, of Eugene Debs, of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and so forth.Keller’s commitment to socialism emerged from her personal disabilities and from her deep sympathies with all handicapped and oppressed people. This is missing from the textbooks and from historical education. Instead, students get the same warm and fuzzy stories that network news provides for a few minutes each day at the end of their broadcasts.

This lack of knowledge about America’s radical past cripples today’s students by failing to inform them of the long historical tradition and record of resistance to injustice, racism, sexism, homophobia and capitalism itself. “Lies My Teacher Told Me” is replete with examples throughout its pages. The book highlights how students learn distortions and inaccuracies in their texts and throughout their “educational” experiences.

Take the case of John Brown. The radical abolitionist who led the raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859 and was executed for his role is regularly portrayed in history textbooks as a religious fanatic who was likely deranged. Yet among African-Americans of the era, including Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, John Brown was hardly thought of as crazy; rather, he was seen as a man of principle willing to go to the gallows for what he believed was morally right:eliminating the unspeakable evil of slavery. Loewen’s corrective about Brown is hugely important. Students should sympathize with Brown’s righteous fervor about racism instead of dismissing it as the ravings of a mad extremist.

Similarly, American history textbooks devote little if any space to the disgraceful persecution of civil rights figures, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., by the Federal Bureau of Investigation under J. Edgar Hoover. “Lies My Teacher Told Me” touches on how history texts follow the Hollywood approach to civil rights. Loewen cites the dishonest film “Mississippi Burning” as the exemplar of highlighting white people as the heroes of civil rights advances and progress. This romanticized and misleading information about civil rights in the United States does a profound disservice to students, and retards efforts to redress the virulent racism that continues to pervade the nation’s institutions.

Loewen’s treatment of such events as imperialist adventures and invasions of Cuba, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and other Latin America countries, the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, the Iraq War and other dubious American historical events throws into relief the propensity of traditional textbooks to see no evil. This propensity is disastrous for students. Without a comprehensive understanding of history, they are simply unprepared for a life of active public citizenship. “Lies My Teacher Told Me” is powerful; indeed, it is an essential complement to Howard Zinn’s iconic “A People’s History of the United States.” Like that remarkable work, it serves as a crucial counter-textbook to provide a more realistic and critical narrative about the American past.

Textbook publishers are integral parts of the American capitalist industrial apparatus. They exist to make profits; they are, to be sure, not entirely indifferent to the truth, but that principle always gives way to the bottom line. High school history textbooks in particular are designed for mass sales and must conform to the specific requirements of state textbook selection committees and commissions, many of which are dominated by conservative forces and personnel. Bland, noncontroversial, patriotic language is the safe approach because that leads to the highest probability for adoption and sales.

Loewen reveals another disconcerting truth: Textbooks appear to be authored by major academic authorities with strong, even stellar reputations as historical scholars. But they are not the real authors of the texts. Freelance writers are paid to ghostwrite many or all chapters with the dull, fact-heavy material that students must digest in their perennial quest for high grades. Publishers merely “rent” academic names to go on the cover (some of whom are actually dead or long retired). This essentially fraudulent practice underscores the basic thesis of Loewen’s entire book.

Moreover, teachers for the most part are perfectly content to continue using these tomes. Burdened with multiple responsibilities, they reflect the same inertia of all institutional settings. They have used these textbooks for years and they are generally familiar and comfortable with them. Changes requiring them to institute and teach true critical thinking skills would take serious effort, time and emotional energy. Regrettably, not enough high school history teachers want to move in that direction.

Inadequate history courses supported by misleading and deceptive textbooks lead to adult citizens unable to make critical judgments and decisions in a complex society beset with multiple social, economic and political problems. This is especially troublesome in the Trump 😈 era of alternative facts. George Orwell put it all too well in “1984”: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

A core concept of “Americanism” is the belief that the United States has a God given right to control all of the Americas in the name of democracy and freedom–but in reality, for plunder and commercial interest – historian Gerald Horne joins Paul Jay

The supposedly right of the United States to interfere in the affairs of Venezuela has deep roots in American economic history and culture. This painting, American Progress from 1872 by John Gast, is a representation of the modernization of the new west. Columbia, the woman in the white robes, is a personification of the United States and is shown leading civilization westward with the American settlers. She’s shown bringing light from the east into the west, stringing telegraph wire, holding a school textbook that will instill knowledge, and highlights different stages of economic activity and evolving forms of transportation. As she moves westward, Indigenous people and a herd of buffalo are seen fleeing her and the settlers.

With the ushering in of these developments, the Indigenous people living in the west and their way of life is cast out. The Monroe Doctrine of the 1820s, which was originally meant to keep European colonizers and competitors out of South America, later became a rationale for asserted U.S. power and interest throughout the Americas. This deep-seated belief, the right of the United States to bring democracy and freedom, just as Colombia did in the west, without regard for international law, and in real terms, assert American commercial interest in South America without regard for international law, is a core concept of American exceptionalism. And just before I introduce the guest, let me give some credit to Wikipedia for this, and I think I donate to Wikipedia because it’s often very useful.

Now joining us to discuss the historical context of the Venezuela U.S. attempted coup is Gerald Horne. Gerald holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. His many books include Storming the Heavens and The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism. Thanks for joining us, Gerald.

GERALD HORNE: Thank you for inviting me.

PAUL JAY: So put the Venezuela attempted coup, intervention, into a historical context. I mean, whole sections of the corporate media, certainly the corporate leadership of the Democratic Party, the foreign policy establishment, it just goes without saying somehow the United States has a right to do what it’s doing. They can dress it up in the fight for democracy, but with the exception of a small number of progressive congresspeople who have put a resolution, H.R. 1004, calling for non-intervention in Venezuela, the whole foreign policy establishment just seems to accept that the Americans have a right to do this. So give us some of the history of this.

GERALD HORNE: Well, first of all, the United States prides itself on its alleged anti-colonial origins, born in an uprising against the British Empire in 1776. But if you look a bit more closely, the conclusion you will arrive at is that the newly formed United States of America in the late 18th century began the overthrow itself of Native American polities stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The Monroe Doctrine that you just referenced also should be viewed in that context. That is to say that keeping European nations out of the Americas was seen to be in the naked self-interest of the United States of America. For example, when England and the United States came to blows, came to war, during the War of 1812, London basically helped to sponsor Native American uprisings and uprising amongst enslaved Africans. And that helps to give rise to this impulse to keep London out of the Western Hemisphere.

Likewise, when the United States says that it does not want European nations in this hemisphere, it was also responding to the fact that at the time of the Monroe Doctrine circa 1823, you also saw an effort by Russia creeping down what is now the West Coast of the United States of America and Canada. Recall that one of the major arteries in Northern California as we speak is called the Russian River. It was seen as important to keep Russia out of the Western Hemisphere as well. And likewise, note that patriots like Jose Marti of Cuba oftentimes called for a united Latin America. It was felt on the part of the United States of America that Latin America should be balkanized, that it should not be part of any empire, not necessarily because this was an anti-colonial impulse, but because a balkanized Latin America would make the individual nations much more susceptible to U.S. encroachment, which is precisely what happened to Mexico when a good deal of its territory was snatched by the United States during the war of 1846 to 1848, including the now most populous U.S. state that is California.

So I think that this conflict with Venezuela needs to be seen in this wider context of the United States seeking domination and hegemony in this hemisphere. It has been seen as crucial to the growth of the United States for the last two hundred years. And in some ways, it reflects the United States’ present approach to the European Union. Recalled that Mr. Trump has oftentimes expressed disdain for the E.U. He would like to deal with European nations one on one, and sees the fact that Europe is united as an impediment to United States’ manipulation of individual European states. A similar impulse helps to govern U.S. relationships with Latin America, leading to this attempt to overthrow the duly constituted government in Caracas, Venezuela.

PAUL JAY: One of the things that seems to be at the core of this idea of American exceptionalism and the American’s right to violate what would be norms of international law in South America because it’s “our backyard,” if you look at that painting again, while she’s not carrying a Christian cross, part of this idea was that this manifest destiny was a God-given right to the United States, to colonize the West, to cast out, as I said, the Native peoples who were not Christian. This kind of overt use of what was clearly a colonizer’s slogan everywhere, where the Europeans colonized to bring Christianity to the Pagan unbelievers, whether it’s Africa or Latin America or Asia, it seems that that idea, number one, still has some currency about the God-given right, especially given how much of Trump’s support is within evangelical and Christian sections of the population.

And number two, the code word now, or similar use of words, instead of God and Christianity, it’s now democracy and freedom to essentially justify the same kind of grabbing of land and resources and such.

GERALD HORNE: Well, I would make a friendly amendment. I would say that more than Christianity, we’re talking about the Protestant sect within Christianity. That is to say, if you look historically at the antipathy that has been expressed by Washington towards other nations in the hemisphere, you cannot separate that from the religious wars between London and Madrid that left London as the victor. And with the United States of America as a successor state to that Protestant impulse, and given the fact that much of South America is dominated by Catholicism, and given the fact that anti-Catholicism has been a core component of U.S. history going back to the 1820s at the time of the Monroe Doctrine, when convents were being burned to the ground and when Catholics were being persecuted.

Once again, this was not only an expression of religious bigotry, it was also an attempt to loot predominantly Catholic countries the way that Mexico was looted during the War of 1846 to 1848 and the way that Washington intends to loot, plunder, and pillage Venezuela, as national security adviser John Bolton made clear during a now infamous interview with Fox Business just a few weeks ago, when he suggested that the interests of the United States in Venezuela is taking its oil. That is to say that we have to take with more than a grain of salt, perhaps a shaker of salt, the evangelical Christianity that is said to undergird U.S. foreign Policy, which in many ways is just a cover and a veneer for a naked lust for profit.

PAUL JAY: There also is a lot of growth in Latin America of the evangelical church and variants of, to a large extent financed by the United States. In fact, I think evangelicalism is the fastest growing religion now in Latin America.

GERALD HORNE: Well, that is true. I mean, keep in mind that with the rise of liberation theology in Latin America a few decades ago and the option for the poor that at one time the present Pope was sent to represent, you have had a contrasting tendency within Christianity of so-called evangelical Christians, so-called Protestant sects who have sought to combat liberation theology on behalf of Washington, on behalf of Wall Street, on behalf of U.S. imperialism. And you see that same impulse at play, not least with the arrival in Bogota, Colombia of late, of Vice President Michael Pence, who is the political representative of that evangelical Christian tendency, a heartbeat away from the presidency.

PAUL JAY: The use of this religious imagery and grammar, and as I say, the use of the words democracy and freedom are akin to it for I guess a more secular audience, it’s part of the strategy of this modern version of the Monroe Doctrine. But I think it’s about the plunder of the resources and the reestablishment of the oligarchs in power, especially in the countries that were part of that pink tide, Brazil and Venezuela and they’re hoping for Bolivia and Nicaragua. But there’s another element to it which I think is important. When Tillerson was Secretary of State, and he was one of the more recent invokers of the Monroe Doctrine, what he was very concerned about, and I think U.S. policy is very concerned about, was the extent of which, because of these pink tide governments, China had become a major power in Latin America, I think Brazil’s number one trading partner, maybe the number one trading partner of Argentina.

And the geo strategy of trying to push back Chinese power and influence, this Venezuelan attempted coup needs to be looked at in that regard too, because both Russia, and particularly China, had loaned lots of money and were making real inroads into the Venezuelan oil sector. Let me add one other little piece to this. I mentioned this in another interview, but the largest source of heavy crude in the world, the reserves, is Venezuela, and one of the biggest refineries of heavy crude is owned by the Koch brothers in Texas. And Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State, is a Koch brothers creation. His businesses were financed by the Koch brothers, his political candidacy in Congress as a Tea Party candidate, number one donor the Koch brothers, and now the Koch brothers have him as Secretary of State. So both oil objective, but geo strategic objective of pushing China out of its very strong position in South America and Latin America.

GERALD HORNE: Well, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. First of all, as is well known, Michael Pompeo hails from the prairie region of Kansas, is exactly what you said, a creation of the Koch brothers. In fact, there’s been some talk about him running for the U.S. Senate for an open Senate seat from the state of Kansas. Second of all, with regard to China, you not only find heavy Chinese influence in Venezuela in terms of oil, but also, as you noted correctly, with regard to Brazil and Argentina. In fact, during the G20 summit that took place a few months ago in Argentina, you had the conservative president of Argentina reprimand a U.S. spokesperson who made a critique of the Chinese role in Latin America precisely because the Argentine government is very close financially to the Chinese government.

But it’s not only in South America. If you look right off the shores of southern Florida, with regard to the Bahamas, you’ll find that China has become a major and important investor. Cuba, as is well known, has very close ties, not only to China but also to Russia. And indeed, it’s no accident that in demonizing Maduro and the Caracas-based regime, there has been a related demonizing of Cuba as a major supporter, particularly in the way that it helps to influence the Venezuelan military. And even in the Caribbean, Jamaica, for example, you see that the Chinese have been very active, building a road from north to south, which has been a long term wish of the Jamaican government going back to independence in 1962. So certainly, with regard to pushing out Venezuela, or that is to say the regime in Venezuela, this has everything to do not only with Chinese and Russian influence, but also the fact that in the waters off Venezuela, Exxon Mobil has just “discovered” five billion barrels of oil to recover. There is a territorial dispute between Guyana and neighboring Venezuela.

The Guiado cabal, which is seeking to come to power in Caracas has made clear–

PAUL JAY: Just quickly let me insert, Guiado is the guy who is the President of the National Assembly who declared himself president, something that was planned months before with the Canadian-led Lima group and the U.S. CIA and State Department. So Guiado is a part of this American scheme.

GERALD HORNE: And he’s made clear that he’ll be more willing to play ball with regard to Exxon Mobil than the current patriotic regime of Maduro in Caracas. So this is the actual situation that I’m afraid to say that is not only being ignored by the corporate media, but as well, you have many Democratic Party chieftains who are somehow looking past this reality.

PAUL JAY: Talk a little bit more about corporate news coverage of the current crisis in Venezuela and the extent to which the sort of “corporate democrat liberal,” big quotations around the word liberal, foreign policy establishment seem to have no problem whatsoever syncing up being on board with people like Elliott Abrams, who was responsible for war crimes and coups and facilitating the invasion of Iraq, and on and on. Both corporate TV news and these corporate Dems aren’t saying a word about being in the same boat with Abrams and the neocons.

GERALD HORNE: It’s quite curious, is it not. I mean, here you have Democrats, who accuse the 45th president of being a fraud and a con-man, some Democrats say he’s actually a traitor and in the pay of a foreign power, but yet they’re willing to go over the cliff with him with regard to what’s happening in Venezuela. I think that you should draw a lesson with regard to the bipartisan nature of the backing and support of U.S. imperialism. And quite frankly, it’s rather disappointing that you have people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who take progressive domestic positions, referring to Mr. Maduro as a quote “dictator,” giving aid and comfort to the coup mongers in Washington. And in fact, one of the few Democrats who’s spoken out vigorously against this impending coup attempt, or attempted coup in Caracas, is Congresswoman Omar of Minnesota, who has been demonized herself because of what she has raised with regard to the Israel lobby.

PAUL JAY: Just to mitigate a bit the Sanders thing, although I agree with you, I think especially he came out today or yesterday where he made a comment about the Venezuelan government should let the foreign aid through, supposed aid. Even serious progressive Venezuelan critics of Maduro, people like Edgardo Lander who are very critical of the Maduro government and critical even of the 2018 elections and so on, have denounced this foreign aid as a scheme to promote U.S. intervention. Sanders came out and called for allowing this aid through, so either he’s very badly informed or he’s caving to some of the pressure on this Venezuela issue.

On the other hand, at least he has opposed the intervention, and this bill I mentioned, H.R. 1004, has 33 members of the Progressive Caucus have signed on, calling for no U.S. military intervention. We’ll see how far that bill gets. So there are a small section of these progressives who have come out straightforwardly against intervention, which is not unimportant, but certainly the majority of the Democratic Party and the leadership are totally on board with the neocon vision for Latin America.

GERALD HORNE: Well, I think that that’s understandable in light of the fact that even the New York Times has suggested that the so-called opposition lacks a plan B. That is to say, they expected the Maduro regime to collapse like a house of cards. That has not happened, and therefore they’re flailing and floundering, looking for a way to push the regime out of power. But I would like to warn Washington and would like to warn Mr. Trump himself, personally, that it would be a grave error, and indeed a catastrophe, to contemplate a military intervention, not only because the Venezuelan military thus far is holding firm, but also recall that there are Colombian militants inside Venezuela who would like nothing more than to give Uncle Sam a bloody nose if Washington is so bold and outrageous as to contemplate a military intervention. Not to mention the fact that the most battle-hardened troops in the hemisphere, those are precisely Cuban troops and Cuban military advisors who work hand in glove with the Caracas-based regime. And so, I think that to a degree, this Democratic Party dovishness with regard to military intervention is understandable and certainly supportable.

PAUL JAY: Let me just add one thing. I’m going to show you some pictures here. This massive rally, demonstration, which is far as the eye can see, took place just a couple of days ago on Saturday. This is a pro-Chavista demo, protest, opposing any U.S. intervention, opposing Guiado. Our colleague that’s down there, Sharmini Peries is down there, and she says it’s as big as she’s ever seen. She was guessing at perhaps a million and a half people because it looked like as big as at the height of the Chavez years. There was also a large anti-government protest. I don’t know the numbers. It may even have been as big, but corporate media completely ignored the million and a half people or so that came out to oppose American intervention.

And you know, there’s a lot of people in that protest that I would guess have a lot of critique of the Maduro government, but their demand is that this is up to the Venezuelan people to sort this out, and the Americans should have nothing to do with it. And of course, they’re completely behind Guiado and were completely behind the coup in 2002. And it was people like this million and a half people that came out and defended Chavez in 2002 and prevented the coup from succeeding and brought Chavez back, literally, from a firing squad. And if the Americans ever try to use military intervention in Venezuela, they’re not just going to be facing the Venezuelan army, this million and a half people that are in the streets are likely going to be fighting them as well.

GERALD HORNE: Well, as is well known in Venezuela, there are militias that are comprised of many neighborhood groups that I think would be more than willing to go toe to toe with U.S. invaders. And likewise, I think the U.S. military invasion would split the opposition. It would split the Lima group as well. I think it would also help to split the European Union, which has thus far, generally speaking, been rather supportive, surprisingly enough, of the Trump team and their coup-mongering in Caracas, despite the fact that it’s well known that Mr. Trump has a bone to pick with the European Union as well.

Replay of a TRNN interview from December 2016. Historian Peter Kuznick says Truman bought into the Republican’s post-WWII campaign against Russia and used the hysteria to purge the Democratic Party and defeat former VP Henry Wallace in the ’48 Presidential election; with host Paul Jay

April 5, 2015

In a speech one month ago, the first black president of the United States challenged millions of white Americans to resist the convenient allure of overlooking the country’s blemished moral record. It was a dual challenge, actually—first to the classical understanding of American exceptionalism, but also to America’s persistent critics, who abjure the concept of exceptionalism altogether.

“What greater expression of faith in the American experiment than this?” President Barack Obama said. “What greater form of patriotism is there than the belief that America is not yet finished, that we are strong enough to be self-critical, that each successive generation can look upon our imperfections and decide that it is in our power to remake this nation to more closely align with our highest ideals?”

This was both a rejection of the fairytale America perpetuated by American conservatives, in which national virtue overwhelms sin, and a statement of faith in the country’s robust capacity for self-improvement. And he delivered it in Selma, Alabama—a Southern city whose folksy name evokes state-sanctioned, state-administered violence against black citizens—on the fiftieth anniversary of Bloody Sunday. Selma would be a perverse venue for celebrating the Jingo’s exceptional America, but it was the perfect backdrop for Obama’s more nuanced rendering: the convening point of the march to Montgomery, on a bridge named after Edmund Pettus—a vicious white supremacist, who committed treason against the United States as a Confederate general, and later terrorized former slaves as an Alabama Klansman and Democratic Senator.

In the self-critical America of Obama’s imagination, more people would know about the Edmund Pettus bridge and its namesake. The bridge itself wouldn’t necessarily be renamed after Martin Luther King or John Lewis or another civil rights hero; because it is synonymous with racist violence, the bridge should bear Pettus’s name eternally, with the explicit intent of linking the sins of the Confederacy to the sins of Jim Crow. But Obama’s America would also reject the romantic reimagining of the Civil War, and thus, the myriad totems to the Confederacy and its leaders that pockmark the South, most of which don’t share the Pettus bridge’s incidental association with the struggle for civil rights.

This week provides an occasion for the U.S. government to get real about history, as April 9 is the 150th anniversary of the Union’s victory in the Civil War. The generous terms of Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House foreshadowed a multitude of real and symbolic compromises that the winners of the war would make with secessionists, slavery supporters, and each other to piece the country back together. It’s as appropriate an occasion as the Selma anniversary to reflect on the country’s struggle to improve itself. And to mark the occasion, the federal government should make two modest changes: It should make April 9 a federal holiday; and it should commit to disavowing or renaming monuments to the Confederacy, and its leaders, that receive direct federal support.

Two years ago, writing in The New York Times on the occasion of Memorial Day, Jamie Malanowski proposed recommemorating 10 Southern U.S. Army bases that bear the names of Confederate officers. These include both obscure fighters—like Edmund Rucker, who is commemorated more for his successes as a post-war industrialist than as a combatant—and extremely prominent warriors for the cause of slavery—like P. G. T. Beauregard, whose men fired the first shots at Fort Sumter; and A. P. Hill, who made an example of race mixers by parading hundreds of captured Union soldiers, black and white, through the taunting streets of Petersburg, Virginia. As Malanowski explained, all of the bases were built during the world-war mobilizations in the first half of the 20th century. The responsibility for naming them fell to people with antiquated racial views and blinkered memories of the Civil War itself.

It’s unfathomable that anyone today would attempt to name a new military installation, or rename an old one, after a Confederate general. But at the time these bases were named, there wasn’t nearly as much of a consensus behind the argument that the Confederates committed treason against the United States in support of a war for slavery.

That lack of consensus was an ineluctable consequence of concerted postbellum efforts to sand down the seams reuniting the states. There was a real but inadequate constituency for crushing the Southern establishment after the Civil War, and reintegrating the country under an entirely different paradigm. Instead, the North enabled the South by giving it unusual influence over shaping the official mythology of the war. Yes, the South surrendered. The states ratified the 13th Amendment. The Union survived. These facts couldn’t be altered. But memorializing the rebellion as a tragedy of circumstance, or a bravely fought battle of principle—those narratives were adopted in part for the unspoken purpose of making the reunion stick. “You lost, we won, and we’re all living in the USA,” Talking Point Memo’s Josh Marshall once wrote. “But we’ll let you win in the battle of memory and valor and nostalgia.”

People of good faith can argue over whether these kinds of symbolic concessions (as opposed to the concrete ones, which consigned emancipated slaves to a century of sanctioned depredations) were wise or necessary means to the end of preserving the Union. Some of them weren’t concessions at all, so much as insufficient commitment on the part of Northerners to the livelihood of blacks in the South. “[A]s Northern Republican Party became more conservative,” historian Eric Foner wrote recently, “Reconstruction came to be seen as a misguided attempt to uplift the lower classes of society.” But 150 years on, we know that subjugation is a moral obscenity, and that there’s no valid modern argument for spitshining the Confederacy.

Today, the South is home to innumerable counties, schools, and other monuments named in honor of Confederate men, or established to celebrate the Confederacy itself. The federal government can’t change that on its own, but it can refuse to participate in the celebration. It could rename these 10 army installations after Union fighters. It could remove monuments to the Confederacy (as opposed to museums and landmarks) from the National Register of Historic Places, and disclaim any obligation to finance their maintenance. It could stop producing headstones for Confederate graves—as Steven I. Weiss documented in The Atlantic, the feds process nearly 2,000 of these a year, at a cost of half a million dollars, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for maintaining more Confederate graves and monuments than Union ones. It could remove the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery and place it in the custody of the Smithsonian—or at least end the spectacle of the president of the United States bestowing it with a wreath every Memorial Day. We aren’t being polite to anyone worthy of politeness, or advancing any noble end, by continuing to honor traitors in this way.

We know from experience that there will be resistance to such efforts. Some critics will caution that singling out Confederate officers will give way to politically correct efforts to sideline other historically important Americans. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were slaveowners. Shouldn’t we expiate their sins by banishment as well, starting with the $1 and $2 bills?

But figures like Washington and Jefferson fit comfortably within the framework of exceptionalism that Obama sketched in Selma, while supporters of secession do not. Obama’s telling of American history is one in which an establishment worthy of preservation is continually improved by righteous internal forces. You don’t need to be morally pristine to be immortalized in Obama’s America, but you can’t be on the side of forces that reject the establishment altogether when it advances incrementally toward its founding ideals. Likewise, those who would caution that a more accurate reckoning with the Confederacy would inflame racial tensions are merely restating the implication that the country is too weak to be introspective. If Obama’s expression of American exceptionalism is correct about anything, it’s that this kind of thinking has no merit.

By contrast, the Union’s victory, and the abolition of slavery, both merit celebration as exemplars of American improvement and renewal, even if many Unionists weren’t moral heroes. These twin accomplishments are as worthy of a federal holiday as any holiday we already celebrate. So let’s name April 9 New Birth of Freedom Day. And if that creates too much paid leave for government workers, we could swap out Columbus Day. We don’t yet live in the America Obama described, but we should strive to.

In a better America, we’d all have Thursday off. And there would be fireworks.

Brian Beutler is a senior editor at The New Republic. He hosts Primary Concerns, a podcast about politics.

By contrast, the Union’s victory, and the abolition of slavery, both merit celebration as exemplars of American improvement and renewal, even if many Unionists weren’t moral heroes. These twin accomplishments are as worthy of a federal holiday as any holiday we already celebrate. So let’s name April 9 New Birth of Freedom Day. And if that creates too much paid leave for government workers, we could swap out Columbus Day. We don’t yet live in the America Obama described, but we should strive to.

In a better America, we’d all have Thursday off. And there would be fireworks.

Uncle (Eddie) Cracker's expected reaction:

I will be happy to never have to read another single word written by that double talking, racist, bigoted, 'might equals right' ideology worshipping, sworn enemy of all things Socialist, Texas Dentist Post turtle again as long as I live.

The Czar's Blessing for all the uncle crackers out there in general, and Eddie in particular: